Trouble Ahead for Older Students, Study Finds

Age matters. That, in a nutshell, is the conclusion of a new study
about delaying children's entry into school or retaining them in the
same grade once they get there.

The study, published last week in Pediatrics, the journal of
the American Academy of Pediatrics, could lend credence to educators
who oppose holding children back. It could also give pause to parents
who postpone enrolling their children in school in the hope of giving
them an academic edge.

Because down the road, the study says, separating these children
from others their own age may set them up for problems.

Researchers at the University of Rochester found that students who
are older than their classmates because they started school late tend
to have more behavioral problems in adolescence than students who are
the average age for their grade.

"Parents want to keep kids out to give them a leg up on tests," said
Dr. Robert S. Byrd, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the
University of Rochester school of medicine in Rochester, N.Y. "But
holding children out of school may not give them any advantage, and may
cause problems."

Since the 1970s, the proportion of students who have delayed
entering kindergarten has doubled, owing in part to holding children
back to give them a competitive academic and social advantage, the
report says. This and other trends, including a rise in the number of
special education students who are allowed more time to complete high
school, as well as immigrant students who may need more time to catch
up on coursework, have contributed to an aging school population in the
United States.

For the study, Dr. Byrd and his colleagues at Rochester General
Hospital analyzed interviews with parents of more than 9,000 children,
ages 7 to 17, collected for the federal National Health Interview
Survey in 1988.

Of the 26 percent of children in that sample who were old for their
grades relative to their peers, about half had been retained a year.
The other half had been held back from entering school by their
parents, or because a child's birthday fell near a school's cutoff
date.

Conduct Unbecoming

The researchers found that students who repeated a year were more
likely than their younger classmates to manifest behavioral problems,
such as crying excessively, cheating, lying, and losing their tempers.
In addition, the study found, students who started school later had
more behavioral difficulties than average-age students, especially when
they reached adolescence.

At age 17, 7 percent of the average-age students in the study
exhibited extreme behavioral problems. In comparison, 16 percent of the
students who started kindergarten late displayed similar inappropriate
conduct, while 31 percent of the students who had failed a grade for
academic reasons showed extreme behaviors, the researchers found.

"Early on, children who have been delayed look like normal
age-for-grade kids, whereas when they reach adolescence, they look more
like kids who've failed a grade," Dr. Byrd said.

No Social Promotion

In general, older students may exhibit improper behavior because
separation from students their own age might make them feel
self-conscious and stigmatized, the study says.

But just because students who are older than their peers may have
more behavioral problems should not be an argument for promoting
children who aren't academically ready to advance to the next grade,
some education groups said last week. ("Promote or Retain? Pendulum for Students
Swings Back Again," June 11, 1997.)

"To pass kids along when they can't read--to socially promote
them--is an outrage," said Bella Rosenberg, an assistant to the
president of the American Federation of Teachers. The 950,000-member
union published a national report last month that decried so-called
social-promotion policies, but cautioned against conventional retention
as well. ("AFT Report Assails Schools'
Promotion, Retention Policies," Sept. 17, 1997.)

While overworked instructors rarely want to shoulder the unfinished
work of another teacher, the question shouldn't be social promotion vs.
retention, Ms. Rosenberg argued. "The issue is getting these kids the
academic help they need in a timely way so they can turn things
around," she said.

While education researchers found the study intriguing, they said it
should come with some caveats. "This is an important study in that it
reiterates the importance of early intervention," said Nancy Karweit, a
research scientist at the Center for Research on the Education of
Students Placed at Risk, located at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore.

But Ms. Karweit said that because the Rochester study uses a
decade-old survey, it may not accurately reflect current trends. More
districts have halted the practice of retaining students in recent
years, she said.

Ms. Karweit also noted that the study fails to distinguish between
children who were held back from starting school by their parents to
give them an academic boost and those who were retained by their
kindergarten teachers because of learning disabilities, for
example.

If this "early retention" were counted, Ms. Karweit said, it might
shed more light on how problematic delaying a child's entry into school
really is.